Jim McInally doubts Rangers’ reconstruction plan

Peterhead manager not convinced by B-team proposal as Ibrox club talk with SFA

Peterhead manager Jim McInally says it's not the right time to introduce Old Firm colt teams to the league structure: Picture: SNS

Jim McInally has become the latest figure from a lower league club to question a league reconstruction proposal from Rangers which includes introducing colts teams from the Old Firm.

Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson, Head of Academy Craig Mulholland and director of football Ross Wilson hosted a video conference call with the SFA yesterday as they continued to seek to explain the merits of the Ibrox club’s reconstruction proposal.

Conversations with individual clubs will continue this week in a bid to soften the opposition to a proposal that seems set to be defined by the intention to place colts teams from Rangers and Celtic in the bottom tier of a 14-14-18 set-up.

The Ibrox club realise they will have to take time to win round hearts and minds. It is claimed Rangers and Celtic would each pay £125,000 up front to the bottom-tier teams and a combined total of £700,000 in the four-year plan. They would also commit £4,000 in guaranteed ticket sales and streaming rights for each away match.

McInally felt the combined Old Firm joining fee of £250,000 in the first instance was not enough to change the view of lower league clubs already firmly opposed to a B-team plan that regularly rears its head. “That’s £15,500 per team when you split it 16 ways,” said the Peterhead manager. “It is not game-changing money. It is not that great in the grand scheme of things.”

He said he would prefer a four-tier structure rather than three. “If I was Rangers, I’d be saying who is going to oppose it?” added McInally. “Peterhead will oppose it. Forfar will oppose it, Clyde will oppose it... So let’s go for 14-10-10-12.”

McInally, who was a youth coach at Celtic, where he started his playing career, in the early 2000s, was also not convinced by an idea which features in Rangers’ proposal where Premiership coaches will be ‘loaned’ out to assist lower-tier clubs.

“That’s a wee bit condescending to the coaches and managers that are already at clubs,” McInally said on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound.

“We’ve taken Simon Ferry from Celtic and made him a coach at our team and his training’s excellent but he’s not reinvented the wheel. There’s nothing that Celtic are doing that we’re not doing.

“I do think there are good ideas there but I don’t think it’s the right time for this. We need to get back to when we can start playing football again, especially at lower league level.”

The strategic partnership plan – which also includes between four to six players being loaned by Premiership sides to lower league teams – was first proposed by Stenhousemuir chairman Iain McMenemy last year.

McMenemy took part in a presentation by Rangers on Saturday morning and later said he has “an open mind” about a proposal he described as “comprehensive”.

He added: “The fact they have spent time producing something a bit more meaty means it is being more well received at the moment. But I still think it will struggle – the concept of Old Firm development squad teams is difficult for teams in our league to accept. We have to have that conversation with clubs and supporters.”

Elgin City chairman Graham Tatters stressed he would not entertain this latest idea.

“It really is getting tedious now,” he said. “We are just going round and round the houses. Every time something goes wrong, someone comes up with another one, then another one.”

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